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Alan Kay talks about this when reminiscing of PARC. All of the cool stuff invented at Xerox PARC (PC, Computer Graphics, GUIs, Word Processors, OOP, proto-netwo
by ssivark 7y ago
Alan Kay talks about this when reminiscing of PARC. All of the cool stuff invented at Xerox PARC (PC, Computer Graphics, GUIs, Word Processors, OOP, proto-networking, laser printers) happened in ~5 years by about ~25 people. But those people were second generation researchers shepherded through the ARPA program, and ARPA had been investing in the effort for well over a decade when it finally paid off. Led by Licklider on the ARPA side and Bob Taylor on the PARC side.
Just the laser printer got back a 250x on all the money invested into PARC. And PARC had to push Xerox to even consider productizing that!
- alecco 7y agoBook: Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age (1999)